


If The Fates Allow

by Yahtzee



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Bittersweet, Christmas, F/M, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9063025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: On his first Christmas after awakening in the 21st century, Steve Rogers sits with Peggy Carter, catching up on all the new holiday songs he's never heard...and one old song he's hoping to hear again.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penaltywaltz](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=penaltywaltz).



> Set between "First Avenger" and "Winter Soldier."

The nurses make a point of coming by Room 312. No doubt they're conscientious; no doubt they're genuinely worried about their patient, an elderly woman very near the end of her life.

But the visiting superhero probably helps.

"How's she doing?" the latest nurse asks, as Steve looks up from his book.

"Not one of her good days. She's comfortable, though."

Lacking any excuse that would allow her to stay longer, the nurse wanders off, leaving Steve and Peggy alone. His book ( _A Bright Shining Lie_ ) remains in his lap as he gazes at the woman sleeping in the bed next to him. At first glimpse she is an old lady, gray-haired and wrinkled, so frail and thin he can imagine her getting lost in the thick blankets and pillows around her.

Then he looks again, and she's just Peggy. _His_ Peggy—or so it seems, though really she was never his to claim. The same full lips, same dark brows. The same sense of purpose that never leaves her, not even in sleep, not even in the winter of her life.

The nearby radio plays a Christmas song Steve has always liked ("Here We Come A Wassailing"), one with more good bouncy cheer than the moment contains. As it fades, the announcer intones, "And now, another holiday classic." Steve prepares to hear "Silent Night" or "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing"—and instead, a voice warbles,

 

_You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen_

_Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen_

_But do you recall_

_The most famous reindeer of all?_

 

Steve is ninety-nine percent certain he'd know the "most famous reindeer" if there were another one, but there isn't. Everyone knows there are eight reindeer. Eight _tiny_ reindeer, to be specific.

But the singer starts his song, and Steve begins to recognize the narrative. He mutters, "The story from the catalog?"

A chuckle from the bed startles Steve, and he looks up to see Peggy awake and smiling. This morning she was tremulous and confused, but her eyes are bright again. Before he can ask how she is, she says, "You've never heard this song, have you?"

By now Steve realizes how many things and places and movies and books, he missed out on the past seventy-odd years. But this is different. "They called it a 'classic.' I'd know it if it were." He pauses. "Wouldn't I?"

She shrugs. Her steely gray hair remains set in beautiful curls. It always was, even at the front, where she lived in a tent pitched on muddy ground and still emerged every day with her 'do and her crimson lipstick, so gorgeous she put Betty Grable in the shade. "I'm pretty sure this song's more than fifty years old, at this point. Fifty years is more than old enough to be classic." Peggy holds out one bony hand and sighs. "I'd know."

It's not that he doesn't realize how much older she is, how great the gulf between them seems to be. But he can never bear to hear her acknowledge it. He takes her hand in his and caresses it, a touch to brush away the years. "This story was in the Montgomery Ward catalog. Do you remember? Maybe they didn't have that in England."

She shakes her head no. Peggy shares so many memories with him that almost no other living person knows, but this is one he carries alone.

"I don't like the part where they're mean to Rudolph." Steve's loathing of bullies didn't diminish during his time on the ice. "How do you get a job with Santa if you're mean?"

Peggy laughs. It's the same hearty chuckle that always made him imagine things he had no business imagining, like whether she'd laugh that way in bed. "That's a good question! You'd think Santa Claus would be more particular."

"I guess there aren't that many flying reindeer to choose from."

"Beggars can't be choosers," she agrees.

He loves it when she's like this: awake, aware, _herself_. These moments are strung like lights on a Christmas tree; he ignores the long dark cord as much as he can. What matters is the glow.

No sooner does Rudolph save the day than another song starts, as confounding as the last. "How is a rock supposed to be a jingle bell?"

"You haven't yet heard of rock and roll?"

"Of course I have." You don't get far into the twenty-first century without being introduced to that. "But this doesn't sound like rock and roll, either."

"This was its early days," Peggy explains. Then she starts telling him about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, about the first time she heard a Chuck Berry song, about how she thought bobbysoxers screaming over Elvis were fools until she watched him on television and felt her cheeks flush hot.

Steve's discovering the history of the lost second half of the twentieth century, but there's no teacher he loves more. He keeps Peggy's hand clasped in his as she begins describing a group called the Beatles. People have already told him before that he might want to listen to them, but she's the one that makes him determined to seek the band out. First he'll search for the song she says is her favorite, "Here Comes The Sun."

But other songs demand their due. There's snow and frost on the windowpanes, a wreath on the nursing-home door: this is Christmas. More than this, it's quite possibly the last Christmas he'll get to spend with her. He doesn't want to forget that for a second.

"This one was for charity." Peggy's so animated that the years have seemed to fall away from her face. "A couple dozen famous singers from Britain, mostly, all to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia."

"I'm glad they did that, but—of course people in Africa would know it's Christmas. At least the Christians would."

"The lyrics are a bit condescending, aren't they? But they meant well."

Then there's a more cheerful one about needing a little Christmas right this very minute, which turns out to have been a song from a Broadway show about a little boy and his Auntie Mame. Steve hopes the next one will be as upbeat—and it is, but it makes him wince anyway. "How many times are they going to repeat the 'ding-dong, ding-dong' part?"

" _Too_ many. And can you believe this is by one of the Beatles? He's better than this, usually. I suppose we all have bad days, but why did Paul McCartney have to record his?"

That makes him laugh. The next song does too, and when she gives him a skeptical look, he protests, "Come on, it's funny!"

"I suppose 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer' _is_ amusing the first time you listen to it." Her English accent sounds prim, but only until she says the next with real relish: "Come back to me after you've heard it two hundred times more."

When the announcer promises another classic, Steve hopes for something else Peggy will get to explain to him. What he gets is something better: a gentle instrumental rendition of "Silent Night." He lays one hand on Peggy's arm. "Remember when we listened to this, that time at the front?

"Of course. On the radio. At least Axis Sally sometimes broke up her propaganda with music."

That winter had seemed as though it would stretch on forever. Bucky had died only weeks before, and the sun never seemed to appear in the cloudy skies. He'd always thought Brooklyn had brutal winters, with the wind blowing in icy from the East River; it turns out Brooklyn has nothing on the German front. Several of them had huddled together in a tent around a stove that didn't provide nearly enough heat. Many of their holiday care packages had contained Hershey bars, and some of them melted theirs down so that powdered milk could be transformed into hot chocolate. Steve hadn't had anyone to send him a care package, but Peggy had shared hers with him. They'd drunk their half-cups from battered tin mugs, sitting side by side on camp stools.

 _Why didn't I kiss her then?_ Steve wonders. _Why didn't I take her arm and lead her to a spot beneath a tree and hold her close? I wanted to so badly; she wanted me to. But I didn't do it._ He'd felt awkward. Unsure. What a fool he'd been not to act.

When the song changes next, it's another one he remembers from that last Christmas in Germany, though it was new then. He and Peggy look at each other, instantly connected by the vividness of that memory—the loneliness of the front, and the way even grizzled soldiers had teared up when they'd heard the words for the first time:

 

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_May your hearts be light_

_From now on our troubles will be out of sight_

 

Apparently the song came from a movie with Judy Garland, one he hadn't ever had the chance to see, and was about nothing more traumatic than moving away from your hometown. But to men and boys half a world away from home, facing mortal danger nearly every day, the lyrics meant something different. They imagined singing them to wives and sweetheart and parents and children they knew they might never see again. Even Steve, who'd had no one in particular to go back to, had been moved by the song's sadness, and its hope shining only barely brighter than the darkness.

Peggy's eyes fill with tears, and he takes her hand. Who was she missing, when she heard this song? Who did she leave behind in Britain? They never talked much about her life before. But just as he opens his mouth to ask, he takes in which lyrics she's reacting to:

 

_Through the years, we all will be together_

_If the fates allow_

_Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow_

 

He manages to keep smiling, but knows it must look crooked. "Guess the fates didn't allow, for us."

"And I muddled through." With her free hand she wipes at her eyes. "But I missed you so."

"I'm here now, and I still love you. Just as much as I did before."

Peggy gives him a look. "It's not the same, is it?"

Steve takes a deep breath and finally admits out loud what he's known from the first moment they told him she was still alive. "Actually, it's pretty much exactly the same."

When she blinks at him in confusion, he leans close and kisses her.

It's not a deep kiss. Not a passionate one. But it's a lovers' kiss, as true and as pure as anything Steve Rogers has ever held in his heart. He curves his other hand around the back of her head, keeping her close.

When their lips part, he meets Peggy's eyes, as shy as the skinny boy he was back in Brooklyn. "Okay," he says, surprised at the shakiness in his voice. "Now you know."

"Steve—you can't possibly think we could still—"

"I'm not stupid. I know what we lost." He's thought through all of this in great detail over the past few months. There are limits to the time he and Peggy will be able to spend together. Limits to their physical closeness, not because of his will but because of her bodily and mental fragility. But he's never let the things he couldn't accomplish get in the way of the things he could. "Peggy, I knew a long time ago that I loved you. I knew I'd love you forever, even after we'd turned old and gray. That doesn't change just because you got there first."

"My darling." Peggy's luminous smile would make him think she'd agreed to his unspoken offer, if it weren't for the small shake of her head. "Have you really been spending so much time in this hospital room only to _court_ me?"

He tries to laugh. "Should I have brought more flowers?"

She pats his cheek. Her fragile skin is almost as soft as a baby's, back to where it began. "I love you too. That's why I don't want to see you around as often any more."

"But—I'm not just going to leave you here alone—"

"I'm not alone. I've friends to look in on me, and family too. Good doctors and nurses who truly care. Even a niece named Sharon who takes good care of me. It's not that I don't love your visits, because I do. But this room is my final destination, Steve. Not yours. The life I thought had been stolen from you has been given back. I want you to get out there and _live_ it."

Even though he knows she's making sense on some levels, he shakes his head no. "This new world—the twenty-first century—it doesn't make any sense to me."

"How could it, when you're not exploring it for yourself?" The arch of her eyebrow reminds him of how lethal her wit and will can be, when she chooses. "You're trying to hide in the past. Well, it won't work, Captain Rogers. The only way to hide from the future is to die, and the fates have already made it clear they have other plans for you."

Steve can't let her think that's all there is to it. "I'm not here because I'm hiding—not only here because of that, anyway. I do love you, as much as I always did."

"I know." Peggy's smile has never been gentler, more devoted. "And I love you. That's why I want a new life for you, one that takes you back out into the world."

He glances at the window, where fat snowflakes are falling bright against the night sky. It's a picture of both beauty and incredible cold. Soon visiting hours will be over, and he'll put on his coat and walk out into the snow.

She says, "I knew you before and after the serum. Physically you were so different, but in all the most important ways you stayed exactly the same. I have faith that's how it will be this time, too." Her fingers brush through his hair, a brief touch that lasts hardly a second. "Transform again, Steve. Find the person you're going to be in the twenty-first century."

The nurse comes in then, apologetically reminding them that visiting hours have ended. Steve kisses Peggy's forehead before he walks out.

His thoughts remain in the past as he zips up his parka—an incredibly warm thing, a coat they'd have thanked God for on the front lines. He knows he'll keep coming to visit Peggy, but he also knows he can't come as often anymore. He'll need stories to tell her of the things he's exploring and doing. She's right about all of it, which is pretty much how it goes with Peggy Carter.

But he's not sorry they shared one more kiss.

As he trudges along the salt-crusted sidewalk, he hears music filtering onto the street from a nearby shop; once again, it's "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." But the lyrics have been changed slightly, for a more optimistic age. Instead of crooning about muddling through, the singer suggests:

 

_Hang a shining star upon the highest bough_

 

And that's what Steve intends to do.

 

 

THE END


End file.
